This Special Issue comprises the proceedings from the Roundtable Unconference that took place at Hult International Business School, London, on 3 December 2025. The event brought together researchers and practitioners with expertise in psychology and law who shared their insights into the importance of psychology-law fusion in addressing pressing societal challenges.

Keywords:

psychology and law; judges; lawyers; psychologists; interdisciplinary evaluation; psychology and justice; knowledge fusion

Modern education and professional training in most fields have followed the deep but narrow model, where deep expertise is acquired in a narrow field (e.g. specific area of law), with very few insights incorporated form other disciplines. A common alternative to deep but narrow is wide but shallow, where experts acquire superficial knowledge from across different disciplines, but without interdisciplinary integration needed to extract true value from these insights. In this paper we argue that recent advances in understanding the human mind, combined with unprecedented changes in accessibility of information enabled by AI, provide an opportunity for shifting to the deep and wide model of expertise acquisition. Using the legal profession as an example, we discuss how the shift towards deep and wide model can lead to improvements in decision making and consequent benefits to individuals and societies.

This submission explores the symbiotic relationship between law and psychology, arguing that judicial integrity is not merely the absence of corruption, but a courageous act of judge’s conscience against conformity and indifference.

This paper aims to reflect the unwavering interconnection that exists between the law, its application, and psychology by demonstrating the degree to which the human dimension affects the work of judges or other parties in a judicial process. By illustrating unprecedented cases of this influence, it raises questions and attempts to resolve whether the latest technology can offer solutions and to what extent.

Corruption in Albania is examined through an interdisciplinary lens combining psychological theories and socio-legal analysis to reveal how cognitive biases, social norms, and institutional weaknesses interact to sustain corrupt practices. The study highlights how moral disengagement, anchoring bias, and social normalization embed unethical conduct within political and bureaucratic systems, undermining legal compliance and eroding public trust. Historical and cultural legacies, including patronage networks and kinship obligations, shape perceptions that justify misconduct as loyalty or necessity, complicating reform efforts. Structural anti-corruption measures often fall short without addressing underlying psychological mechanisms that rationalize and perpetuate corruption. Integrating behavioral interventions, such as moral identity reinforcement, peer group realignment, and transparency-enhancing strategies, with legal reforms is proposed to disrupt entrenched patterns. Emphasis is placed on consistent enforcement, visible accountability, and community-level norm recalibration to restore institutional credibility and support democratic integrity. This approach underscores the importance of aligning internalized ethical values with formal governance structures to achieve sustainable reductions in corruption and strengthen rule of law in transitional democracies.

This is a follow-up expert opinion on sleep and the law, summarising the authors contribution at the Roundtable Unconference on Psychology-Law knowledge fusion for real-world challenges that took place at Hult International Business School, London, on 3 December 2025.

Feminist criminology is the branch of criminology that examines how gender influences crime and the justice system. It explores how the judicial system treats woman-centric crimes differently, both for victims and offenders. Although the criminal justice system is meant to provide fair justice, it frequently exhibits subtle biases that influence sentencing outcomes. The law requires men and women to be treated equally for similar acts, but in reality gender frequently has a significant influence on the harshness of punishment. Despite being equally guilty, men and women are typically sentenced differently, with women more often receiving leniency. Judges and juries may be more sympathetic to female offenders due to their reluctance to impose severe punishments that would deprive them of their loved ones and interfere with their maternal duties. Due to this bias, women may receive rehabilitation rather than punishment from the courts, whereas men are more likely to face the full weight of the law.

This is a student perspective paper on psychology and law, following the Roundtable Unconference on Psychology-Law knowledge fusion for real-world challenges that took place at Hult International Business School, London, on 3 December 2025.

This is a short paper on the essentialness of justice professionals with knowledge in both law and psychology for justice.